The rise in precarious labor in the past few decades has prompted a vast corpus of inquiry
into its health consequences. While there is no one definition of precarious employment, Scott-
Marshall et al. (369) identify it as a multifaceted construct covering characteristics of job
insecurity, including both contract duration and insecurity perceptions, personalized bargaining,
and worker-employer relationships.
In terms of perceived job instability, studies demonstrate a more consistent and
significant link between precarious employment and a variety of health effects. Nonetheless, this
metric is based on perceptions, which might be altered by situational factors like economic
downturns or personnel layoffs (Bolibar et al., nd). Precarious employment conditions subject
young people to health inequities due to the frequent flux in the jobs market (Macmillan &
Shanahan nd). Owing to the sheer lack of social and economic rewards, precarious labor has a
negative influence on psychological health and leads to increased health risk behaviors.
On the other hand, notwithstanding reliance on one-dimensional abstractions like
temporary contracts or the impression of job insecurity, recent studies reveal that precarious
employment provisions have a critical impact on employees' overall, physical, and psychological
health when compared to permanent employment contracts (Bolibar et al., nd). Through
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emotional trauma and material deprivation, the effect of precarious employment might transcend
beyond the person and have an indirect influence on the household and family unit. Further, job
uncertainty and inadequate control have all been regarded as significant social
stressors connected to negative health and well-being effects (Scott-Marshall et al. 369).
Constructs such as job insecurity in particular, has gotten a lot of attention
lately, being recognized as a primary mechanism associating precarious employment with poor
emotional well-being and a variety of physical health effects.
In general, precarious employment, as assessed by the Employment Precarity Index, is
correlated to negative mental health outcomes, as well as lower self-perceptions of health and
household well-being. It exposes younger people to health inequities as a result of continuous
labor market transitions and may result in higher health risk behaviors due to a lack of economic
and social benefits.
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Works cited
Bolibar, Mireia, et al. "Precarious Employment and Stress: The Biomedical Embodiment of
Social Factors. PRESSED Project Study Protocol." Frontiers in public health 9 (2021).
Retrieved from https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpubh.2021.649447/full
Macmillan, Ross, and Michael J. Shanahan. "Why precarious work is bad for health: Social
marginality as key mechanisms in a multi-national context." Social Forces 100.2 (2021):
821-851. Retrieved from https://academic.oup.com/sf/article/100/2/821/6153490
Scott-Marshall, Heather, and Emile Tompa. "The health consequences of precarious employment
experiences." Work 38.4 (2011): 369-382.